VOGONS


First post, by melbar

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There is my second rebuilt chieftec system. And i think it may can be defined as a time machine also? Let's see.

The Specs:

  • AMD Athlon 1200 (A1200AMS3B) , it's a thunderbird.
  • socket A cooler, arctic cooling copper silent tc, it's with a thermal sensor inside to control fan speed..
  • Abit KT7 (VIA KT133) , it's the non raid model with FSB 100 only.
  • 2x 256Mb SD-RAM PC133 , so a total of 512 Mb ram.
  • actually installed: RivaTNT2 pro , different vga cards are possible for a little upgrade (GF2MX400 , GF2Ti)
  • ISA sound card - Avance logic ALS007
  • MPU401 - Dreamblaster S2
  • PCI sound card - Creative Soundblaster Live (CT4670)
  • IDE to SD adapter with a 32Gb SD card inside.
  • Lite-On LTR-48246S optical drive (writer). 48x speed.
  • Pioneer DVD-116 optical drive. 16x/40x speed.
  • 3.5" disk drive
  • actually installed (maybe i'll switch to another one later): proSilence Goldedition - ATX 420W
    (with fully recapped capacitors (the medium, big and biggest capacitors), also replaced the PSU fan with two 80mm Arctic F8 silent, also modifed with resistors)
  • 2x 80mm case fan's - one Arctic F8 silent and one Aerocool - both modifed with resistors : 68 ohm and 130 ohm.
  • Chieftec ATX case - beige

The CPU is unlocked. Before i have purchased this cpu, i had a look to the L2 bridges, cause i don't want to use the pencil trick ...

Because the thunderbirds get very hot and very power hungry at high frequencies, i don't wanna try any overclocking. The maximum of 1200MHz is really enough. For more, i'll take another machine.

But undervolting and underclocking is the key: what is possible with this machine:
I can set the multi from 5,5 to 12 (higher I will not consider), so a range of 550MHz to 1200MHz is possible.
Strangly a multiplier of 5 is not working and the abit kt7 is not going to boot.

Actually now, i'm playing Tomb Raider 2 and StarWars-Rougue Squadron3D.
Have started these games with 550MHz. But later @TR2 , i have switched to 650 or 750MHz due to low frame rate at some places...

Some pictures will follow.

#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66

Reply 1 of 17, by Joseph_Joestar

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That's a very nice build! I have something similar (see my sig) and it's a very versatile machine indeed.

For even more slowdown options, try ACPI Throttle. On a VIA chipset, you should be able to reach Pentium and 486 speeds with ease using that.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 2 of 17, by melbar

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The parts i have taken for this build:

Chieftec case - beige - well known design...... personally i like the simple / classic design.

Abit KT7 board. This photo shows the original after i've bought it.

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#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66

Reply 3 of 17, by melbar

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The cpu i have chosen: a thunderbird 1200Mhz
with "closed" L2 bridges for a unlock multiplier - to be max. flexible.

At some positions, i have already replaced some bad capacitors. (I know... it would be better to change them all. May i have some time before the next capacitor will come.)

Additionally, i am going to add a cooper spacer on top of my athlon. A perfect match for the first gen of socket A cpu's.

The cooler: from arctic cooling with cooper plate + thermal sensor.

Attachments

Last edited by melbar on 2021-05-25, 19:13. Edited 1 time in total.

#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66

Reply 4 of 17, by chrismeyer6

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Nice job. I love those Dragon cases. That's a great motherboard as well it's a fantastic base to build on. I have a Abit KT7A-RAID system for my son and it's a beast and just super stable and reliable.

Reply 5 of 17, by melbar

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The VGA cards i want to use:
slower one: RivaTNT2pro , 32Mb
faster one: Geforce2Ti , 64 Mb

The OPL3 compatible soundcard i want to use:
Avance Logic ALS 007

Attachments

#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66

Reply 6 of 17, by melbar

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I've forgot to mention that Win 98 SE 2nd edition is installed.

A second PCI soundcard is added, to use it mainly under win98 environment.

Have found a matching sticker to the front cover.

Attachments

#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66

Reply 7 of 17, by melbar

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Further photo's.

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#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66

Reply 8 of 17, by melbar

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Have removed the NB-fan. It was really noisy compared to the other new silent fan.

I want it relatively silent, even when this was not the approach back in the day.

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#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66

Reply 9 of 17, by melbar

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I thought that there is an option in the bios to deactivate the L1/L2 cache, but setting is not available. My MPV3 board has this option.

So i've tried the throttle tool , many thanks to 'Joseph_Joestar'.

Actually i cannot reach 386 speed with the thottle of 93%.
Doom at minimum settings: 30 fps.
Looking @ Phil's benchmark charts, this is 486DX speed.

Attachments

#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66

Reply 10 of 17, by Joseph_Joestar

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melbar wrote on 2021-05-31, 16:01:

I thought that there is an option in the bios to deactivate the L1/L2 cache, but setting is not available. My MPV3 board has this option.

You should be able to disable L1 cache through SetMul even if the motherboard doesn't support that option in the BIOS.

Combining SetMul and Throttle, it should be possible to reach 386 speeds.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 11 of 17, by BitWrangler

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Nice... might be doing a "cousin' build with a KT133 Asus.. I think most of the parts are in a case together at the moment, it had a Tbred in it last though, but I've found a 1.2 Tbird and this would be more era appropriate. Got a DDR board I can put the Tbred in. My GFX would be GF2MX400 and sound an AWE64.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 12 of 17, by melbar

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Yes, thank you Joseph_Joestar, now it works perfecly.

With 75% throttle & L1D , i'll get the doom speed of 386DX-40.
The values of 3Dbench and PCPbench are even slower than real 386DX-40.

Attachments

#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66

Reply 13 of 17, by melbar

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I have made some power consumption tests to my Athlon Thunderbird.
Because on wiki list,
Athlon (Model 4, "Thunderbird", 180 nm)

, there is the TDP shown only.
So, what i want to know is, how is the consumption @idle load and @100% super-pi benchmark.

Here are the results.

Setting 550MHz

550_1.jpg
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GPL-2.0-or-later

Setting 850MHz

850_1.jpg
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83.08 KiB
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1022 views
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GPL-2.0-or-later
850_2.jpg
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850_2.jpg
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63.37 KiB
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1022 views
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GPL-2.0-or-later

#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66

Reply 14 of 17, by melbar

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Setting 1000MHz

1000_1.jpg
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1000_1.jpg
File size
122.25 KiB
Views
1019 views
File license
GPL-2.0-or-later
1000_2.jpg
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1000_2.jpg
File size
63.34 KiB
Views
1019 views
File license
GPL-2.0-or-later

Setting 1200MHz

1200_1.jpg
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1200_1.jpg
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148.49 KiB
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1019 views
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GPL-2.0-or-later
1200_2.jpg
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1200_2.jpg
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66.11 KiB
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1019 views
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GPL-2.0-or-later

Table:

Thunderbird_power_consumption.png
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Thunderbird_power_consumption.png
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1019 views
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GPL-2.0-or-later

EDIT:
The VGA has been actually changed to a Geforce 2MX400 (64Mb)

#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66

Reply 15 of 17, by melbar

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Very interesting issue is:

There is a visible gap of the shown VCORE: BIOS value vs. Win98 value.

Up to now i don't know why is there this difference between BIOS and Windows showing me different V-core.

550MHz

550_IDLE.jpg
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121.65 KiB
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1010 views
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GPL-2.0-or-later

850MHz

850_IDLE.jpg
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850_IDLE.jpg
File size
123.73 KiB
Views
1010 views
File license
GPL-2.0-or-later

1200MHz

1200_IDLE.jpg
Filename
1200_IDLE.jpg
File size
124.59 KiB
Views
1010 views
File license
GPL-2.0-or-later

#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66

Reply 17 of 17, by melbar

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From my point of view, the temps are good for a thunderbird cpu.

I am using an Arctic Cooling Copper Silent TC
TC: temperature control.

Here is a review of it's successor:

Arctic Cooling Copper Silent 2 TC

#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66